The best feedback is collected throughout the experience, not just at the end

Most marketplace companies, if not all, have some sort of two-sided feedback mechanism in place today. After both sides complete the transaction, they provide a rating for each other.

Normally, this makes sense. After all, it’s not exactly fair to rate something without seeing it from start to finish. But, we do this constantly in our daily lives whenever the transaction experience is long. In a two hour movie, most people aren’t waiting for the credits to roll before they decide their thumbs up/down rating of the film. Similarly, a book with twenty chapters either grips you in the first few chapters or it doesn’t. While you might still go through all the way to the end, your mind has been made up. And by the time you get to the end, it’s very possible that you’ve already forgotten your pointed criticisms or examples of praise. With the constant distractions around us, it’s hard to remember those specific details without a conscious effort to track it somewhere.

Moreover, in marketplaces, especially on-demand marketplaces, the rating feature mostly appears to consumers right before they’re about to make their next transaction. At this point, motivation is focused on access to the next service, not rating the previous service. If there are any notes, they’re generally not top of mind.

In companies like Uber and Lyft, this would mean that a star rating could come up during the trip. To avoid snap judgments or biases, it might require some level of text input or multiple choice selection about the problems or positives. The Kindle already does some related things by allowing you to highlight favorite passages or annotate the book (like margin notes but for feedback).

Another point here is that the feedback aren’t necessarily limited to apps or even software. For example, what if a movie theater provided each viewer with a simple device that would allow them to choose their three favorite and last favorite moments through the movie? Or even if this was just done for focus groups as they were in the process of making the films? It could be a new model for iterative film development! Even restaurants with long degustations could allow users to mark their single favorite or least favorite dish, either to turn that into an a la carte option or to remove from the menu.